Business

Tina Brown to Leave 'The Daily Beast' This Fall

The Daily Beast's editor-in-chief has decided to leave the publication this fall to start her own company, Tina Brown Live Media, which will expand on her three-year-old Women in the World conference series a spokesperson for Brown's new venture confirmed to Mashable. Brown's contract was not up until January, but Brown, apparently, has decided to leave early.

News that Brown was departing was first reported by BuzzFeed, and confirmed to Mashable by two sources familiar with the negotiations, one of whom added that the site is not shutting down.

A spokesperson for The Daily Beast has not responded to a request for comment.

The Daily Beast launched under Brown and IAC in fall 2008. It was, at first, like a free, web-only version of Vanity Fair, the Conde Nast title Brown used to edit. Brown discovered quickly that longform features weren't going to generate enough revenue to support The Daily Beast alone, and today it balances a mix of original reports with aggregated stories and slideshows, bringing in about 6 million unique visitors per month, per comScore. It is still not, however, profitable. According to Adweek, the publication is slated to lose $12 million this year.

Brown's tenure at The Daily Beast — and later at Newsweek, which merged with The Daily Beast in late 2010 and was sold off earlier this year — has been fraught with drama, both internal and external. She has famously clashed with editors and reporters, and been criticized for a series of Newsweek covers, like this one of a back-from-the-dead Princess Diana, for seeming "desperate."

The future of The Daily Beast is uncertain. BuzzFeed speculates that the publication could be sold, closed (unlikely, in my opinion, given the audience size and brand equity at stake — and our source says it won't be) or continue to run under a new editor — perhaps Executive Editor John Avlon.

Update: A source claiming to be close to the negotiations called after we published this piece, emphasizing that Brown — not IAC — "ultimately made the decision to walk away from The Daily Beast" and that it's "more of a mutual separating of ways." The source added that Brown's relationship with IAC Chairman Barry Diller is "not strained" and she continues to have "a ton of respect" for Diller.

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is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 42 million unique visitors worldwide and 21 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.